Woven Baskets of Sorrow - Shannon Yang (new ebook reader txt) 📗

Again I find the sunrise comforting. The sun shines into the summer shelter I share with my sister Alicia and my brothers Albert and Alan. As the oldest child–I’m fourteen–I wake up the others. Albert, who is twelve and brave, goes out to find our father and go hunting with him. Seven-year-old Alan and ten-year-old Alicia, my favorite, must go gathering with me.
I hand them each a basket. We fetch water from the stream, leave it in the shelter, and then take the baskets again and pick berries. I lead everyone to a shrubbery. The berries on the bushes look ripe and juicy.
For a long time we pick. It is so monotonous, always stretching the hand then opening it to drop the berry into the basket. However, berry-picking is work that requires much focus, and for our own sakes, we shall not chat.
My basket becomes overflowed, Alicia’s almost full, and Alan’s halfway, when I get slightly distracted from helping Alan. I look around, telling my siblings to shush. There is something. Then Alan sees it. He points at a large brown bear and starts wailing as I pull him away, both because of the fright of the creature and that he was about to get a ripe berry. I beckon and call for Alicia to follow, since I have only two hands so I cannot drag her along as well, but she still does the boring task of picking and picking. I try to yell louder. If only she notices me...
The bear approaches and destroys Alicia with a single gulp, as if it were the easiest thing in the universe. It is now that I realize I am standing still here, though I am supposed to get Alan and myself to safety.
We shouldn’t have gone to that shrubbery, how ripe or abundant the berries were. For it was there that we left precious Alicia and a basket full of her berries. I don’t tell Mother or Father right away as we enter the tribal settlement, but I go home and weep on my straw mat.
Even as the sun approaches its height and I get hungry, I lay on the bed upside-down and listen to the quiet crunch of berries in Alan’s mouth. He must be scarred for life, but still, I just stay here and sulk. Eventually, I fall asleep.
Finally, in the evening, Albert comes back with Father with a big deer that they have killed. I secretly rejoice with them on the mat and hear them say that it will feed the whole tribe. After setting it down, ready to be prepared, Father and Albert turn to us and tell us the news. They then ask where Alicia is because, of course, they want her to know, too.
We tell them our news. It is a great shock to them, but this lets them understand why I was on the bed, sad and deep. By the way, my name is Angie. I am a young girl in this tribe, Aiklin. Here we do not live with our parents. Instead, when we are ready, we live with our brothers and sisters, if we have them. I started early, at about four. So did Alicia. Since then, she has become my soulmate, my best friend. I could never imagine a tragedy like this.
Mother comes to mourn with us and to prepare a ceremony (and the deer). She says that I have never been so emotional, not when Cousin Claudia and Cousin Larry drowned in the stream, not when the leader, who was so kind, was kidnapped by the warrior tribe, a long-time enemy of ours.
Now Mother often comes to visit, so as to comfort me, saying that the gods watch over me and love me. I don’t think I can ever be comforted again. How could this happen to me? There is no time to do nothing but think. The whole Aiklin tribe is moving towards the rising sun soon.

I am Cynthia, the supreme goddess. Years ago, I gathered materials from all over and built my cozy house. There is the porch, the patio, the portal doorway to the pantry, the spacious bedrooms, and last but not least, the beautiful garden, where I love raising birds.
Birds are small and do much good. Most of all, their elegance, especially as they swoop! Recently some birds have been bad, disobedient. Only one has not failed me. I call her Aiklin. She likes to live in the corner of my garden where I have an orchard of trees and lots of berry bushes. She always knows of my existence and of my presence. The rest of my family likes another bird, Aiklin’s sister Jade-Elle. I hate her because she subjugates Aiklin whenever she sees her. Maybe that is why Aiklin stays out of her sight. Despite these hardships, Aiklin must always be having fun. Time flies for her. Oh, how I want to go out there now and play with her right this instant!
I also have other pets I keep in my house and garden, some of which I regret getting, just like Jade-Elle. One is a bear named Ursine, so cute as a cub. He is now aggressive and wanders all around my garden. Today he decides to attack Aiklin, but gently. Now her tail has a small missing piece, and the rest bleeds because of it. It seems it will never, ever stop. Aiklin moves her home closer to Ursine’s den (and mine), though I do not know the reason. I sigh and go back into my house.
In the mirror, I see my grand white gown. It is made of silk and is very soft. I also have a nice wreath of bay laurel around my head that matches my luminescent emerald pendant necklace. On my slender wrists, there are bright, lovely royal purple amethyst in-line bracelets. I sigh. It is stressful sometimes to be the queen. After telling my family in the living room, I go upstairs to bed. It is so comfortable to lie on a canopy bed, whether or not you are tired.
I cough. I cough again. What is this about? I wasn’t the slightest bit sick yesterday. Well, I guess that doesn’t make an iota of difference. I’ll get some ice water, that’s it. I open my eyes and sit up. It must be late night because the green curtain cloth on the bed looks brownish. I open it. It’s burning hot, but then my hand is suddenly on fire, which is even hotter! I call for my family, but there is no response. I try to call for others, but again there is no response. Is Aiklin here? Is she listening?
I stay low and find a window. The crystalline glass shatters into infinitesimal raindrops. The garden is blessed. The sweet grass hasn’t seen sweet glass in years. That was when I built the house for my family and myself. It took so many tries to get the windows up right. There was always the bitter sound of the shatter.
Out in the distance I see a spot of brown, and higher up against the blue skies I see two smaller spots. As they come closer, I see that the bear is Ursine and the birds above are Jade-Elle and Aiklin. They seem to be the only ones to survive the fire. I am surprised to see that Aiklin is flying side by side with Jade-Elle, but my heart is touched. Furthermore, both seem to ignore Ursine, though he is right under their wings.
I turn around. I see that the house, the best house ever, is ruined and in ashes. My family is dead.
Yesterday I had a dry garden full of flowering plants and lively animals. I wore a gown and jewels. Today my home is gone. With it, so are Joy, Hope, Grace, and Serenity (the nicknames of my daughters)... but also supposed hatred.

My best friend calls to me as my older brother drops me off. Of course, today is the first day of ninth grade, and I hang out with Emma. It’s super awesome because my name is Ella. You know, our names match. I chat with her so much that, in middle school when teachers noticed in the middle of the year and it was becoming such a problem, Emma and I had to go through a complicated process of switching classes and periods so that we were never in the same class with each other.
“There are lots of people we need to meet,” Emma informs me.
I object. “But the town is so small. Our old middle school is the only one that feeds into this place, and usually, there are only about two or three new students. And–”
“This is not usual,” interrupts Emma. “See for yourself. Who’s that over there? Who’s that? By standing at the edge of the big campus we’ve already seen two. Who knows how many more?”
“Let’s make friends with them. Why not? Don’t you want to expand, even if we are great friends? I’m going to talk to that girl over there, whether you like it or not.”
I walk over to a tall girl with a colorful backpack. “Hi,” I greet. “I’m Ella. What’s your name?”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Angie Aiklin,” she replies. “I’m in ninth grade, and I’m new, so can you help me?”
“I am actually a freshman, too, but I’m sure we can work this out together. Also, Angie, this is Emma.”